Let’s say you want to move a file or a folder to the recycle bin using java and not delete it permanently.
How can you do it?
Starting Java 9 , you can do it using a single line of code:
Desktop.getDesktop().moveToTrash()
Here is a demo:
I created a file under C:/files location using the below program:
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Path;
public class TrashDemo {
public static void main(String a[]) {
try {
Path f = Files.createFile(Path.of("C://files/newfile.txt"));
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
And it got created as expected:

Then I moved it to trash using the below code:
import java.awt.Desktop;
import java.nio.file.Path;
public class TrashDemo {
public static void main(String a[]) {
Desktop.getDesktop().moveToTrash(Path.of("C://files/newfile.txt").toFile());
}
}
And it was no longer in the original path.

It got moved to the recycle bin:

That’s it!
You can also move a folder to the recycle bin in the same way as done to a file.
Leave a Reply